Blatter says ‘new facts’ encourage him to fight ban

“As new facts have appeared it’s time to question the decision of the Fifa Ethics-Committee – my suspension of 6 years!” Blatter tweeted, adding hashtags for FIFA, for the Court of Arbitration in Sport, for the World Cup and for his successor as FIFA president, Gianni Infantino.

Blatter also sent out a press release saying: “My aim is to look into the decision of FIFA’s Ethic-Committee in view of informations, and even evidences that I have received, in the meantime, in connection with my suspension.”

“We are working on this case – and looking forward for development,” he said in his statement, which added: “For the time being there is no legal action.”

Blatter, 81, resigned as president of FIFA in 2015 after 17 years in the job.

At the end of that year, following an investigation into a payment of 2 million Swiss Francs (1.8 million euros) to his former ally Michel Platini, FIFA banned Blatter from football for eight years, but later reduced the sentence to six years after he appealed. CAS then rejected Blatter’s attempt to have the shorter ban overturned.

Blatter’s suspension will not stop him attending the World Cup in Russia this summer at the invitation of Russian president Vladimir Putin

Blatter, who is Swiss, has not yet followed the lead of Platini and tried the civil courts. The Frenchman attempted to fight his own four-year suspension in the Swiss courts. After that failed Platini said, earlier this week, that he would try the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.